Halloween Activity for Communication

Real talk: Halloween is not battle you want to fight with your students! And why would you when it doesn’t have to be a struggle?

I love this activity for both oral and written communication! It’s simple, but powerful, and adjustable to any age. In fact, when I was using this with my niece (age 4) and nephew (age 12), my brother (age 36) couldn’t help himself and asked to join in. I’m dying for everyone to try this out, so I’ve created a freebie for you to try out in your class. You’ll find it at the bottom of this post.

The premise is simple: one person describes what they see on a drawing card as clearly as possible while their partner draws based on the oral directions. Anyone can do this, but the older student, the more sophisticated you can get with the drawings and types of directions.

I go over everything in detail in this video from the full, non-holiday version of this Speak, Listen, Draw activity. ⬇️

I love to use this activity in conjunction with Halloween STEM Challenges to round out the day with joy and rigor! You can see a super-quick overview of those challenges in the video below.

This is quick, easy, and enjoyable. Students practice LOTS of skills whether they are the ones giving or receiving directions. I also found it was a way to sneak in some math review by having students use estimation and measurement skills to give clearer directions. By adding shapes, parallel lines, etc. in the pictures, I could also get them to review geometry skills.

Oral communication
Listening
Following directions
Prepositions
Estimation
Measurement
Geometry (depending on pictures)

More ideas for ways to use the cards are included in the freebie below!

Grab the Freebie here!

Looking for Halloween activities you can feel good about using your instructional minutes for? Check out these other free ideas for your upper elementary students and let us do the planning for you!